On Psychological Archaeology
Sep. 19th, 2014 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danieldwilliamAs a distraction from the referendum count last night I watched Patton, the epic biopic of General George S Patton, the Western Allies premier tank commander and most aggressive general during World War 2.
(A bit of a family in-joke, I often refer to My Lovely Wife as the General Patton of our family.)
One of the major plot points was the sense that Patton had of himself as the Eternal Soldier, that he’d been at every major battle through history in some way. The German intelligence officer assigned to research him concludes that Patton can only be understood by viewing him as a renaissance gentlemen looking back from the 16th century at antiquity.
Which set me thinking once again about the archaeology of psychology. How much of the decisions of the past can only be understood by understanding the psychology of our ancestors? How did they create a model of their world inside their own minds? How capable where those minds of modelling the world? I’m thinking not just that they held different beliefs to us but the impact if their minds worked markedly differently from our own.
As example I offer the following thought experiment. How might different psychology and different mental aptitude affect the behaviour of Elizabethan politicians?
(Assume that the theory that combinations of malnutrition, childhood disease, post traumatic stress disorder and limited educational exposure significantly reduces IQ. Assume also that expectations about life expectancy affect rational and irrational judgements about risk.)
How similar were the humans who built Skara Brae and the humans who built the Edinburgh New Town? How can we tell?
I’m not sure how we do any science on this retrospectively but I offer up this blogpost as a potential PhD for some 23rd century post-grad.
(A bit of a family in-joke, I often refer to My Lovely Wife as the General Patton of our family.)
One of the major plot points was the sense that Patton had of himself as the Eternal Soldier, that he’d been at every major battle through history in some way. The German intelligence officer assigned to research him concludes that Patton can only be understood by viewing him as a renaissance gentlemen looking back from the 16th century at antiquity.
Which set me thinking once again about the archaeology of psychology. How much of the decisions of the past can only be understood by understanding the psychology of our ancestors? How did they create a model of their world inside their own minds? How capable where those minds of modelling the world? I’m thinking not just that they held different beliefs to us but the impact if their minds worked markedly differently from our own.
As example I offer the following thought experiment. How might different psychology and different mental aptitude affect the behaviour of Elizabethan politicians?
(Assume that the theory that combinations of malnutrition, childhood disease, post traumatic stress disorder and limited educational exposure significantly reduces IQ. Assume also that expectations about life expectancy affect rational and irrational judgements about risk.)
How similar were the humans who built Skara Brae and the humans who built the Edinburgh New Town? How can we tell?
I’m not sure how we do any science on this retrospectively but I offer up this blogpost as a potential PhD for some 23rd century post-grad.
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